Project Summary
This is an annual update of a data file representing homicides in the United States over the past 50 years.
Project Description
Each year the FBI releases an incident-based file of homicides nationally that includes characteristics of the location (population, region, division), the victims and offenders (age, race, sex), and the offense (weapon, victim-offender relationship, circumstances). Unfortunately, the data releases from the FBI suffer from a considerable amount of missing data, both missing cases (i.e., unit missingness) and missing variables (i.e., item missingness). This project involves using the FBI records along with census data and NCHS mortality data to create a cumulative data file with multiple imputation of both forms of missing data.
Publications
This article presents several approaches for overcoming missing data problems in the 1976-2001 cumulative SHRdata file. Click here for more details.
This paper examines the effects of MI and case weighting on victim/offender/incident characteristics, including standard errors of parameter estimates resulting from imputation uncertainty. Click here for more.
This article examines a variety of myths and misconceptions about multiple homicide and mass shooters, pointing out some of the difficult realities in trying to avert these murderous rampages. Click here for more.
Despite their exceptional rarity, high-profile mass murders, particularly those involving firearms, are often linked to deficiencies in our mental health system and gun laws. This article considers the tenuous connections between severe mental illness, gun control measures, and mass shootings. Click here for more.
This article employs a national homicide database (the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports, SHR) from 1976 through 2015 with multiple imputation of missing information to examine gender differences among victims and offenders in terms of characteristics such as age, race, weapon, circumstances, and victim-offender relationship. Click here for more.
This article replicates previous work with updated data by using a national homicide database (the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports) from 1976 through 2017, multiply imputed for missing data, to examine gender differences among victims and offenders in terms of characteristics such as age, race, weapon, circumstances, and victim–offender relationship. Click here for more.
The Will to Kill: Making Sense of Senseless Murder explores extraordinary and seemingly inexplicable cases of homicide—not to sensationalize them—but to educate you about these crimes. Click here for more.
This article dissect the homicide rise by characteristics of the victims, offenders, and incidents and devote special attention to the similarities and differences in homicide growth by race. Click here for more.
This chapter examines a time when the rate of juvenile violence was considerably higher than it is now and details Fox’s work during those years in tracking and forecasting trends in juvenile violence, including his argument about how to respond to the rising tide of juvenile homicide. It also explains why Fox has declined to apologize for any lasting negative impact that his crime forecast, which turned out to be erroneous, had on the punishment of juvenile offenders. Click here for more.